Podcast App BeyondPod is Beyond Broken

There's a really bad Android app out there called Beyond Pod. I see a bunch of you guys use it for The Bombcast. It was poorly written and sends essentially malicious traffic (a whole lot) to our servers. We've tried to contact the developers about it but they've ignored us.

We're going to be blocking access from that app within a day or two until the developers can fix their bugs.

Pocket Casts is one of the very best apps of any kind, not just podcast apps. Superb interface, really responsive and smooth, has all the features you need and no more than that (although adding premium podcasts is a slightly manual process), team are constantly updating and improving it. Well worth the couple of quid.

Oh great now I have to switch apps for just one podcast. What do you think the bug is? The app might be requesting the data a lot but that is configurable from the app and the user can manually use try and update.

@bisonhero: I'd assume it works well for users, its just really dumb with providers. If it can't reach a podcast for some reason, like the user isn't authorized, it keeps trying over and over and over. We've seen users with 40k hits within a few hour period. If it works for you and the podcast provider wants to eat that traffic then there's no reason not to use it.

You just won't be able to use it for Giant Bomb because we're rather use those server cycles for actual traffic not a constant Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!, Can I?, No!...

@glitches: Every time the app asks Can I?, we need to do a bunch of stuff. And then the amount of traffic trips an alarm that we're getting scraped and then someone has to deal with that. So when the block goes live we're just going to see if the request is from Beyond Pod and respond with "Go away kid, ya bother me". and be done with it.

Another shoutout to Podcast Addict, I like that I can set it to download the 3 oldest unlistened podcasts from a feed automatically and delete them upon listening, makes it going through the bombcast back catalog super easy.

Didn't realize so many people used apps to organize podcasts. I just download them and add them to iTunes and everything manually.

Is it just an Android thing?

Wait... you download the .mp3 off a website, add it to your iTunes library, and then sync?

Leave the man alone, he's too busy rewinding those tapes to take back to Blockbuster to use an app. I kid I kid. I'm an old man too. xD

Though I use beyond pod so this is a bummer for me but I'll switch over to anything they ask of me. This is the most important feed I have now that Bill was banished from ESPN. Can't wait for HBO pod and cousin sal..... >.>;;;

I have used Beyond Pod for years, had no idea it caused podcast providers problems. Can anyone recommend an alternative please?

Pocketcasts and overcast are both very good. Overcast is free, Pocketcasts is not.

The REAL overcast is Apple-only, the one on the Play store is a third rate knockoff.

As for Pocket Casts, I can't wrap my head around the UI. There's absolutely no organization, finding older episodes is a pain... and frankly, I really miss the subject matter sorting you could to in BeyondPod.

Didn't realize so many people used apps to organize podcasts. I just download them and add them to iTunes and everything manually.

Is it just an Android thing?

Wait... you download the .mp3 off a website, add it to your iTunes library, and then sync?

Leave the man alone, he's too busy rewinding those tapes to take back to Blockbuster to use an app. I kid I kid. I'm an old man too. xD

Though I use beyond pod so this is a bummer for me but I'll switch over to anything they ask of me. This is the most important feed I have now that Bill was banished from ESPN. Can't wait for HBO pod and cousin sal..... >.>;;;

I've used BeyondPod. Honestly? One of the inferior podcast apps. Podcast Addict is really good, and lots of people are singing Pocket Casts' praises.

Gotta be honest, sometimes this site's attitude towards Android is maddening. I have to imagine there is a better stopgap measure than to block off a chunk of your paying customers. It's just frustrating when you've been using an app for years without issue and have it organized and customized just the way you like and are being told to stop using it.

@corporalgregg: Sorry, I get that you're pissed about us breaking an app that you've been using, like and are happy with. Keep in mind please that we're not blocking you, just that one particular app. From the looks of this thread there's viable alternatives. This app is not playing well with us and we've got too many things to do than to deal with bad programming that we don't control. There's plenty of bad programming that we do control and have to deal with.